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User blog:Nathanhazz/Stepping Back: A Personal Note
Greetings. I wanted to write this to clarify why I've been falling away from the community, where I've been, and what my plans for the future are with regards to the wiki and my role within it, as I've slowly taken on the unofficial role of "head" archivist in the eyes of many. That's a position I've always avoided claiming, as the wiki is community-led, and could never exist without the efforts of many. However, it would seem amiss to not acknowledge that perception now, as I'm taking a step back and reflecting. I've always been one to flit between interests quickly, hyper fixating on one thing or the other. This has been both a blessing and a curse in my life, allowing me to learn deeply and discover passions that have led me to my career, and learn a great many interesting things while building new skills, while also causing me to neglect things and lose focus on things I care about. In this case, this hyper fixation is what's led me to all of you, the IW community! Many of those I've collaborated with can attest to the insane pace and focus I've tackled my work with here. When I initially joined the IW discord out of a curiousity for how discord worked, and whan an idle game community could look like there, I never imagined I'd one day see my name sorted to the top of it, or being invited to a closed beta to balance the game, or that this would be the door that would allow me to tinker with writing a technical blog. Even just reading you talk about me and discussing my work while I'm not there has been a surreal experience. Unfortunately, as with all my fixations, the bill comes due, and I've felt my interest waning over the past months. I've resisted, and held on dearly, feeling indebted to the community, and wanting to prove myself worthy of the privileges I'd been granted. However, I think that forcing myself to that standard has actually been detrimental, and has slowly morphed from a joy into a drain over time, bleeding out my interest. Watching every edit, constantly taking notes for the next progress report, and reading every message has devolved into a time-consuming chore. And that's the primary reason I'm stepping back. Hopefully, this will be a healthy change, and engaging on more reasonable terms after a bit of rest will reinvigorate my interest in Idle Wizard, it's wiki, and it's community. I want to be clear that I'm not completely departing, either. I'm not leaving any discords, and you're more than welcome to ping me. I will, however, be dialing back. I don't want to be forced to update anything anymore, but that doesn't mean I won't do anything. However, it's been more than a month since I've updated my Archon guides, and I invite anyone to update them with proper attribute recommendations. I'm also unlikely to get majorly involved in the deadlines of rushing out after an update, and this is likely the end of the "monthly" aspect of monthly progress reports as well. If anyone wishes to take on any of these mantles, please do join the wiki discord, and get in touch. Joining this community has been one of the best things I've done in the past year. It's been a pleasure to meet and interact with many of you, and to build so many interesting skills: coding in new languages, managing a community, informative writing, balancing an idle game, and all kinds of interesting math. Since I've started working, I've seen this swell up into everything I'd hoped for and more, with the new design, an ever increasing number of guides and editors, and a more tightly knit community than it's ever had. And most importantly of all, I'm confident that the IW wiki is left in more than capable hands, and will continue to expand and improve. All of our Archivist's are incredible people, who work hard and really care about this special little corner of the internet. Therefore, I'm freeing myself to work on other projects. I already have some ideas to tinker in other spaces, particularly in the medium of video production and editing. Maybe one day I'll even take those skills back to the IW community to create something new. And although there is certainly a sad element to stepping back from what's been a deeply fulfilling part of my life, there's energy and excitement there too, and I'm eager to see what's next. Thank you all for being a part of this fascinating chapter of my life, and if you've made it here, than thanks for caring enough to read through my meandering ruminations on it. Always a pleasure, Nathanhazz Category:Blog posts